Secret Garden

This blog currently under construction. Most posts will be unavailable for an indefinite period of time while things are edited, updated, rearranged, and otherwise improved. Thanks for reading, and to keep up with me, visit my frequently updated blog at www.gacktpause.wordpress.com 

Gackt.com posted a link to an “overseas fans questionnaire” form at the beginning of April. The questionnaire asks a few simple questions concerning Gackt’s considering making an appearance “overseas”.

In a nutshell, the questions concern topics such as what do you like about Gackt? and what would you like Gackt to do if he came to your country?

The questionnaire closes on April 30th 2009– there are only 4 days left, but if you are a fan of Gackt and have a free moment to answer the questions, please visit www.gackt.com and click on the “Dears Overseas Fans Questionnaire” link at the bottom of the page. The more people who fill out the form, the more chance we have of bringing him overseas!

I just got back from Kyoto a week ago. Yes, it was spectacular, thanks.
No travel-blog on the way yet, but the idea is filed away somewhere in
my brain for a more focused and collected time (if they exist). However,
Secret Garden is going to see some major changes. Or has seem them.
I decided that Vox was just about as much as I could handle before therapy
kicked in, so this week we're seeing the debut of Secret Garden at wordpress.com.
The reaction I get is "been there, done that" about wordpress, but honestly,
I don't see why they're complaining. Wordpress has a much more sophisticated
and independently-controlled set-up with a lot more options (can anyone say
'draft save'?). I tried E Blogger and couldn't imagine having exactly the same
theme as the rest of the world (one decent one out of 5. Not many options.)
  The one thing I do appreciate about Vox, though, is the neighborhood set-up.
And of course, I have my roots here. On that note,Secret Garden will remain open
and, I imagine, active on Vox. Probably a lot of the posts here on Vox will appear,
remastered so to speak, on wordpress eventually.
  I hope you'll check out my new spot! Thanks for reading Secret Garden-- and I'll get back
to reviews soon! (I bought excessive quantities of CDs in Japan, so there's material
just waiting for inspiration to strike and splice and merge and make.)

Gacktpause

Yes! It is now Samurai Week on Secret Garden!

Samurai_fiction

Yes indeed, in honor of my coming sojourn to
the sacred island itself, I will theme the next week
on Japan's most famous nicety: the Samurai.
  Today I'm going to review a movie I watched
recently, which deserves much noise made in its
honor. *fanfare* Samurai Fiction (1998)distributed by
Pony Canyon [which also takes charge of the recently
raved-about LM.C]. The film was the first full-length feature by director Nakano Hiroyuki, who was established as the director of music-videos for MTV Japan. This is apparent in particular scenes that are brief, but dreamlike and strange with no character movement or dialogue taking place, set under a dramatic music score.

  Samurai Fiction begins when the aloof swordsman
Kazamatsuri, warden of the ancestral sword of the Iga Clan, steals the sword and leaves the Clan. The Clan
head's young son (in the lovely passion of youth! The
daring days of youth! The reckless-- ok, we get it) gets
the uppity idea to chase after Kazamatsuri and retrieve
the sword. The rest of the film follows both men in their
clashes and reprieves.  

  The other area in which we see homage to the director's       
MTV-heritage is in the casting of musician Hotei Tomoyasu
in the villainous role of Kazamatsuri Rannosuke.
Hotei composed and performed the entire musical-score for the film,
and it was his acting debut. After Kagen No Tsuki, I've about had my
fill of 2-hour-long music video acting-debuts, but Samurai Fiction
soon revealed that I had nothing to worry about!
 The musical-score was quite awesome. Mainly rock with some heavy
guitar-wailing courtesy of our villain, paired quite nicely with some
taiko (Japanese drums) tracks where appropriate, and a few licks
in honor of Clint Eastwood's cowboy flicks.

  The film itself was an exceptionally awesome piece bowing
to famous Samurai productions such as the acclaimed Kurosawa's
masterpieces. The film, although shot in 1998, is done entirely
in classic black and white, except for some special situations.
Such as. There is no gore-- nope, not a spec of crimson blood
(and certainly no fountains exploding from graphically punctured
arteries). However, we are not entirely cheated! Whenever someone
is cut down by a masterful katana stroke, the screen flashes red,
and we shudder....punctured arteries exploding in our deep,
wounded conscious....

  The film is also intended to be a comedy. And honestly...
it's the first Japanese comedy I have ever watched and
actually laughed really really hard at! It was truly hilarious!
Many aspects of SF and lots of the characters (especially
the frantic young protagonist) were almost parodies of
the same movies that inspired it. And it is as skillfully
done as the finest episodes of School Rumble! (yes...
I did just pull that comparison out of no where...
actually it has nothing in common with School Rumble
except for its wild abandon in hilarity and awesomeness).
 
 

Samurai Fiction Preview

The acting was great, and contrary to this wounded psychology's concerns around acting-debuts... It was actually Hotei's appearance on screen that caused much heightening of attentiveness-- his portrayal of the totally awesome, aloof, brimming-with-badass-ness was completely perfect, and you could totally expect him to draw his katana and have it do like Transformers and morph into super-sleek guitar and then everyone watching would start rocking out along with. Yeah. Like that.

  If you have any pride as a samurai-movie-lover, you will acquire this masterpiece ASAP and do not just yourself, but all of us, a huge favor. Both parody and tip of the hat to the great Samurai films of the century, Samurai Fiction is the perfect blend of comedy and action, and is perfectly acceptable to watch with your mom.

  

    

 
 
 

 
     
 

LMC

Yes...finally I am freed from the enslaving obsession with NANA.
I'm not watching the anime or reading the manga anymore....which
means I get my life back. Not that it was a bad obsession or
anything! It just sort of took over my life, is all. And now that I
can actually justifiably count down the days until I leave for Japan,
I have to stop slacking off and get down to business. Maybe later.
There are still computer troubles....oh they go on eternally. People
tell me "Oh, you have to shut it down every night when you're not
using it." But you know how much trouble it is? It takes like ten
minutes for my internet to kick off in the morning if I shut it down!
But I guess it's better than having it freeze halfway through whatever
I'm doing and have to restart and lose stuff..

So last week sometime I heard [Sentimental Piggy Romance] by LM.C.
If you recall, I was interested but not entirely sold. Well, I've been
listening to them a lot recently and watching a lot of PVs, in the hopes
of hearing something really good and seeing something really cool.
To say I'm sold is an understatement.

  I do this thing with people, too...Usually when I meet people I have a
"god they were obnoxious" or "they seemed really cool" experience.
More often than not I end up hating the people I originally thought
were cool, and actually end up really liking the ones I didn't like at first.
I often do this with bands, as well. When I find a band I just *love*
I usually get sick of it in a week, but bands I'm not so sure about....
usually become my favorites. :D So don't worry about trying to make
a good first-impression with me. Best to insult me and give me the cold-
shoulder. I find that really magnetic. But ANYway, fascinating as I'm sure
my warped psychology may be, let's get back on topic here...

  I think it was around when I heard "Oh My Juliet"  and "Cosmology".
Every time I would open iTunes on my computer I would go to the
store and browse LM.C without ever buying anything. I was just, y'know,
thinking about it. So finally the fateful day came... and I bought
 
GIMMICAL IMPACT~ LM.C

Two of my major complaints with some CDs these days are that 1: the
volume balance between music and vocals is slightly in the music's favor.
This shouldn't be. The other one is that 2: all the songs sound the same.
Most groups have a "signature" sound-- for example I can immediately
tell whether it's a Malice Mizer or an AnCafe song just by the guitar
riffs. This should be, after all we like these bands for a certain reason
(because we like their sound), and it's distracting and can be confusing
when a band changes their style too often (think song to song). But
sometimes they really do sound *exactly* the same.

  The first two things that immediately struck me about GIMMICAL IMPACT
was that the music-vocal balance was really nicely done, which is helped by the
fact that Maya has a really clear, distinguishable voice. It's not getting lost
anywhere. I really do like his voice-- it's quite striking and interesting (without
being strange at all).
  The other thing I noticed was that almost every song sounds really different.
Some songs are very electronicky, while others are more heavy-rock
in their use of effects and guitar. They even use spots of rap when they feel
like it, and actually pull it off.
The selection is really nicely balanced between the different styles
(so you're not stuck with too much of one kind), without it getting at all
distracted or overloaded. The pacing of the CD is well-done as well, without
any jarring transitions from melancholy or happy to heavy.
  Again, each song is really well done-- very interesting and different melodies,
both music and vocal-wise, which has you favoriting all of them and then
never having to change tracks unless you're bi-polar.
 
  Overall I think they have a great sound. It's really balanced, so I can't stop
describing them this way, haha. It's just hard to find good music, good vocals,
good variety, and cool vocal melodies and lyrics paired with a unique image.
They're like....cute....without being....cute. I think if you're a Jrock fan, you'll
understand this cryptic description. :D    
  On the topic of image: I think I originally described them as American-rock-influenced.
I spoke too soon, ahhhh....I spoke much too soon, shame on me. They're not really...
I mean, unless they claim to be-- in which case I would be redeemed, haha. I mean,
you could say they are, because they don't really do the whole "Harajuku look thing"
as I so articulately describe it. They're like... colorful. Wooooooo! Go me with my
awesome vocabulary! I think we can leave it at that, yeah....Let's do that.
So anyway, it's actually a breath of fresh air. Cool stuff.

I'm going to have to consider buying Super Glitter Loud Box next....
ahhh, iTunes gift cards slip through my fingers like a handful of sand....  
 
 
 
  

To be honest...I've been convalescing this week,

Nakashima Mika as Nana Osaki

Yasu

In fact... somtimes I wish I had a Yasu to go complaining to
when the going gets tough. He has to be one of my favorite
characters; even though he has a smaller role, his presence
is very important. He's something of a symbol of the sanity and
goodness in the crazy world. Or something.
  Anyway....I was saying. I also really like the whole aspect of
the celebrities' "real lives" ...and what happens when they mix with
us mortals. Apparently it's not good news...and everyone gets the
painful truth that....dun dun dun! They're mortal too! There is even kind
of an underlying theme at one point where the characters seem to
be trying to figure out if Takumi has feelings [even though he's a
celebrity]. Which is totally unfair....but I was kind of wondering that too....

Ok. My big complaint. In one of the episodes I just watched there
is a scene where BLAST is performing a new song for the producers...
(it's actually the 3rd....4th....ed? for the series) As usual, the vocals
are provided by Anna Tsuchiya. I don't mind Tsuchiya, really...but
for some reason I can't picture Nana singing with her voice. I don't know
why, but it doesn't fit well in my mind, so I don't really go crazy for
the scenes where NANA is singing. Maybe it's just *too* predictable.
I enjoyed the songs that Nakashima Mika did for the NANA movies, and I
really liked Oliva Lufkin's vocals for TRAPNEST-- but the whole NANA
thing didn't cut it for me. Which is a bummer, because the whole anime
is kind of about her and her band. ^_~

GacktPause, over and out~

TRAPNEST

  Wanna know something? Well, I'm kind of peeved at Vox (again). I keep having problems, because apparently I'm the first person to ever be audacious enough to want to put images directly into posts. Now you would think that because this is a feature Vox seems to be kind of proud of, they would make it easy to do. They do, they just also happen to make it very easy to screw up. Somehow I end up freezing Firefox or blasting my
fully-written post into the stratosphere of lost posts and emails...
And then I must get on my knees and pray to the Internet Gods for
forgiveness, may they free me from the karmic bonds of all my great web-wide sins.
  That also reminds me. Toshiba-san hasn't been very well recently, which is a cause of
great concern to me. I may have to take him to the doctor-guy for some kind
of check-up, as long as it's "complimentary".
I'm not sure what happened, but for some reason things have
been running kind of slow since the middle of the week...Certain
sites have been kinda wonky and such. I'm not sure what could be
the problem, though, considering that I deleted over 300 files and moved
a bunch of stuff onto backup so it wouldn't be weighing down the system.
The internet also takes a while to start up, although that has been a lot
better lately... And the left-clicker is broken. But that happened a long time
ago, haha....
  I guess it just isn't all that simple anymore.

Anyway... 
I think it's funny, because I had never listened to LM.C before last night.
I didn't even know they existed. But then I was watching... I can't even
remember. It was another long youtube sprint. I was watching something
and one of the "You Might Enjoy..." videos on the selection was...I can't
remember the title, either, but it was an LM.C song with an interesting title.
If my understanding is correct, most of their songs have such interesting titles.
Oh! The song was....no, wait, nevermind. It's no good, I really can't remember.
  They finally seem to be a band that doesn't get mobbed with Visual Kei
labels (?)...They're a good example of kei-less rockers, haha. Their look is
really weird...Very '90s. It almost reminds me of more the American band
look... Not in a bad way, just...in a way. I think they sound pretty interesting,
and they stand out of the crowd. Their PVs are very strange... A couple of songs
in particular jumped out at me, and I think this is really exciting, because this week
is the week where I set out to discover all these hit songs that I can't stop
listening to. I'm just lucky if iTunes happens to have the songs I find. ^^

             おめでとう！

                 ガクトパー図にお誕生日おめでとう～！
　In honor of it being Gacktpause's birthday today! "Otanjoubi omedetou!" courtesy of B'Z.

I really need to stop getting distracted. There are only like 5 weeks
until I leave for Japan! Which is incredible, and crazy. And between
now and then I have so much reading, research, studying, planning
to do.... It's going to be fun, but I'm still feeling lazy...and it's
hard to find the books I want to read. I don't want to shell out the money
to buy them new, but all the books at the library are history books or
totally dated, which doesn't help me at all. Granted I am probably
the first person in decades to take anything out of the Japan section (lol).
The reason I am stewing about this is because I really have to start taking
my studies more seriously. I mean, my kana and kanji skills have hit
rock-bottom.... T__T (tears of despair). But even knowing that, I
haven't been studying very hard, haha. Oh no.... what am I going to do?!
  Instead I've been day-dreaming about Final Fantasy VIII all the time. I was
thinking about FFIX, too, but I'm at a part where I've played the game so fast that
my characters are actually under-leveled, so I can't go back but I can't go forward...
Which is lame, because my characters were so cool! I thought I was finally going
to beat it, and then this travesty happened...
I also have an old copy of FFVII (as if any of them areN'T old anymore), but
it turns out I bought it used...and the disc was scratched. I've been meaning
to get it resurfaced for years, but have yet to find someone willing to do it.
  FFVIII was actually the first RPG I ever played (I was really young, and didn't
beat it either....there's a pattern here.) I have to say it's not my favorite FF game,
but it's still really cool. I have the soundtrack....and it's so good. Uematsu Nobuo
is a genius-- like the Mozart of video-game soundtracks. I always have to listen to
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec like 5 times before I can continue with the rest of the
CD. ^^  
  After FF8 I played FF7. It's been forever since I played it... T___T But it's one of my
favorites. I remember being really, really creeped out at the part where you meet Red XIII.
Ahhh...good memories. That game was really hard, but it was so much fun. I like how about
half of the characters are optional. Sephiroth is my favorite character... People say
that's not fair because he's not a good-guy...But he was like, the greatest villain in video game
history! I have a soft spot for villains.
  Come to think of it, I don't think I beat that one either. :D This spring I'll probably end
up beating all of the video games I've been putting off for the past 10 years (lol).
Now that I'm older and can take the heat.